Kansas newspaper co-owner, 98, dies after cops raid home with ‘illegal’ search warrant; cops seize paper’s computers, phones, equipment
Evan Rosen, New York Daily News
Sun, August 13, 2023
A small-town Kansas newspaper said its 98-year-old co-owner died Saturday after local police raided her home, seized her computer and other equipment, and separately grabbed phones, computers and other material from the paper’s staff.
National press organizations have condemned the raids on the offices, staff and owners of the Marion County Record, a 154-year-old weekly paper serving Marion, Kan. and its namesake county, home to 12,000 people.
“We are shocked and outraged by this brazen violation of press freedom,” said a statement by Eileen O’Reilly, president of the National Press Club, and Gil Klein, president of the club’s Journalism Institute.
“A law enforcement raid of a newspaper office is deeply upsetting anywhere in the world,” the statement said. “It is especially concerning in the United States, where we have strong and well-established legal protections guaranteeing the freedom of the press.”
Joan Meyer, 98, who co-owned the newspaper with her son Eric, “collapsed Saturday afternoon and died at her home,” after becoming “stressed beyond her limits and overwhelmed by hours of shock and grief after illegal raids,” the newspaper reported.
The Record added that Meyer was “otherwise in good health for her age.”
During their raid on Meyer’s home Friday, police seized her computer and a router used by her Amazon Alexa personal assistant device, the newspaper said. Additionally, the paper reported, cops copied bank statements belonging to her son.
At the same time they raided Meyer’s home, officers raided the newspaper’s office in Marion, the paper reported. Police seized journalists’ personal phones and computers and other equipment and material from the newspaper office, the Record said.
Officers also raided the home of Marion’s vice mayor, Ruth Herbel, 80, and seized her mobile phone and computer, the newspaper said.
The search warrant used by authorities was signed by a local judge, Laura Viar, who ordered the seizure of equipment and information used in “the identity theft of Kari Newell,” a local restaurant owner.
Last week, the newspaper reported that Newell had forced their journalists out of a public forum at her restaurant with U.S. Rep. Jake LaTurner. LaTurner’s staff was apologetic, said a story in the Kansas Reflector, a news website.
But Newell was angry with the newspaper’s report on the situation, and said so on her Facebook page. “Journalists have become the dirty politicians of today, twisting narrative for bias agendas, full of muddied half-truths,” Newell said. “We rarely get facts that aren’t baited with misleading insinuations.”
Afterwards, an anonymous source contacted the paper and provided evidence that Newell had lost her license after a DUI in 2008, and had illegally operated her vehicle afterward. Local news reports said the DUI could affect Newell’s wish to obtain a liquor license for her business.
The Record checked the tip, but didn’t run a story. Eric Meyer said he also alerted local police to the situation. “We thought we were being set up,” Meyer told the Reflector.
Meyer accused authorities of “Gestapo tactics.”
The National Newspaper Association called on officials in Kansas to “immediately return any property seized by law enforcement so the newspaper can proceed with its work.”
But the Marion Police Department defended the raids in a Facebook post. “When the rest of the story is available to the public, the judicial system that is being questioned will be vindicated,” said the post. The department’s webpage says its staff includes Chief Gideon Cody and four full-time officers.
Melissa Underwood, the communications director of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, confirmed that an investigation into the matter has been launched
August 12, 2023
The Committee to Protect Journalists said on Saturday that it was deeply troubled by Friday’s police raid on a local U.S. newspaper office. Media organizations reported that police officers in Marion County, Kansas, took computers and phones — including personal cell phones — from the Marion County Record newspaper and the homes of its personnel.
Reports said that a search warrant issued by a district court magistrate gave police authority to search for devices that were used to access the Kansas Department of Revenue records and records relating to a local restaurant owner.
“The raid by police on the Marion County Record is deeply disturbing,” said CPJ President Jodie Ginsberg. “Local news providers are essential in holding power to account — and they must be able to report freely, without fear of authorities’ overreach.”
U.S. federal law provides protections against searching and seizing materials from journalists, with requests for material usually going through a subpoena process.
“This kind of action by police – which we sadly see with growing frequency worldwide – has a chilling effect on journalism and on democracy more broadly,” said Ginsberg. “The actions of the police and the judiciary in this case must be thoroughly and swiftly investigated.”
A Marion County Record report said the raids contributed to the death of the paper’s co-owner, 98-year old Joan Meyer, whom it said collapsed and died on Saturday afternoon following the police search of her home.
The Marion County Record said it plans to file a federal lawsuit to 'make sure no other news organization is ever exposed to the Gestapo tactics we witnessed'
Police in Kansas raided a local newspaper on Friday after its reporters got a tip about sensitive information concerning a local business owner, according to a report from the Kansas Reflector.
In a full-force showing Friday morning, the Marion Police Department, along with the city’s two sheriff’s deputies, showed up at the office of the Marion County Record, a family-owned weekly newspaper that was first published in 1869 and focuses on the central Kansas county of less than 12,000 people.
They took “everything we have,” owner and publisher Eric Meyer said, according to the Reflector.
They also raided Meyer’s home and seized his computers and various records and documentation. Police told Meyer that the electronics would be sent for examination to a lab.
When police raided Meyer's home, they also confiscated his 98-year-old mother's Alexa smart speaker, which she used to stream TV shows and ask for help, the Marion County Record reported in its own account of the raid.
When asked by The Messenger, police chief Gideon Cody declined to give a specific reason for the raid or reveal what investigation the raid was connected to, and instead referred to the Federal Privacy Protection Act, highlighting that the Act can be used when "there is reason to believe a journalist is taking part in the underlying wrongdoing."
The raid comes after reporters at the Marion County Record got a tip about sensitive information related to restaurant owner Kari Newell.
The Peabody Gazette-Bulletin, a sister publication of the Marion County Record, reported last week that Newell had ejected the outlet’s staff from a public forum with U.S. Rep. Jake LaTurner, who represents the second congressional district in Kansas. LaTurner did not immediately return The Messenger’s request for comment.
In a conversation with Marisa Kabas for her Substack, The Handbasket, Meyer said he has not yet heard from LaTurner's office.
A confidential source shared with the Marion County Record that Newell had at one point received a DUI and continued to drive without a valid license. The newspaper never published the information out of suspicion that they "were being set up," Meyer said, according to the Reflector.
Instead, Meyer contacted the police and told them what he found. When the police notified Newell, she complained, falsely saying the Marion County Record disseminated sensitive documents.
The Reflector reported that Newell had admitted that she got a DUI, saying she "foolishly" received one in 2008. She also said she operated a vehicle without a valid license "out of necessity."
She made this confession on her personal Facebook account using a changed name, according to the Reflector.
On that same Facebook account, Newell bashed journalists.
"Journalists have become the dirty politicians of today, twisting narrative for bias agendas, full of muddied half-truths,” she wrote, according to the Reflector. “We rarely get facts that aren’t baited with misleading insinuations.”
The message of the raid, in Meyer’s view, was to "mind your own business or we’re going to step on you," he told the Reflector.
Meyer told The Handbasket that the raid comes just weeks after the Marion County Record also began looking into misconduct allegations by Gideon Cody, the new chief of the Marion Police Department.
In The Handbasket, Meyer said one of the Marion County Record reporters has for weeks been investigating claims from multiple former coworkers of Cody, who allegedly shared that he was rumored to be demoted at his previous job over charges related to sexual misconduct.
When The Messenger reached Cody for comment, he declined to give details on the raid, citing a "criminal investigation."
He also did not address the allegations about him Meyer said his newspaper had been investigating. Additionally, he did not answer The Messenger's specific question asking whether the allegations had anything to do with why the raid occurred.
But Cody cited the Privacy Protection Act of 1980 in his response to The Messenger, saying "in generalities," journalists are protected from newsroom raids by law enforcement officials.
"It is true that in most cases, it requires police to use subpoenas, rather than search warrants, to search the premises of journalists unless they themselves are suspects in the offense that is the subject of the search," he said.
One of the circumstances in which it might be appropriate to raid a newsroom, Cody told The Messenger, is "when there is reason to believe the journalist is taking part in the underlying wrongdoing."
Cody did not specify whether he believes Meyer or the newsroom committed wrongdoing.
"The Marion Kansas Police Department believes it is the fundamental duty of the police is to ensure the safety, security, and well-being of all members of the public," he said. "This commitment must remain steadfast and unbiased, unaffected by political or media influences, in order to uphold the principles of justice, equal protection, and the rule of law for everyone in the community."
Meyer told The Handbasket that the files for Cody's investigation were on the computers seized by Marion police.
He added that he wasn't planning to publish anything on Cody just yet.
"I wouldn't feel comfortable printing individual allegations, but it is true that we were investigating him and we had decided not to run anything at this point," Meyer told The Handbasket. "We're not making any allegations against him, but we had investigated allegations."
The Marion County Record has plans to file a federal lawsuit, according to the article posted on its website.
"Our first priority is to be able to publish next week," Meyer said in the article. "But we also want to make sure no other news organization is ever exposed to the Gestapo tactics we witnessed today. We will be seeking the maximum sanctions possible under law."
Since the raid, Meyer said the newspaper has received an outpouring of support. Meyer told The Handbasket that the paper saw an "incredible swelling of people buying subscriptions."
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